Www.rust-lang.org: Explain what Rust actually is on the landing page
Content Feature Request
Summary
Explain what Rust is on the landing page -- a programming language.
Motivation
On the landing page, a lot of time is spent praising Rust, yet at no point (if you don't count Chucklefish testimony) is it explained what Rust actually is. Without clearly communicating what Rust is, it's confusing and not useful to a person who might be first visiting the website without prior knowledge.
Drawbacks
None that I can see. I have yet to visit a PL website that doesn't have "programming language" on the landing page.
ghost
All 24 comments
Is it a likely thing to end up on the page without knowing in advance you are visiting a site of a programming language?
tshepang
on 8 Dec 2018
I don't think is relevant if it's likely or not. The page should make it clear this is a programming language, not some framework or some other thing.
eddyp
on 8 Dec 2018
Well, the title of the page is "Rust programming language" and the website URL has "rust-lang" in it. The rest of the page also presents multiple references to Rust being used for programming as a language and not a framework or other tool.
Zaechus
on 9 Dec 2018
Is it a likely thing to end up on the page without knowing in advance you are visiting a site of a programming language?
Yes. Think about non-power users landing here, because they are doing research for teammates.
A contrived example, think about the 12yr old kid who plays the Rust game, but accidentally lands on the rust programming language page. Maybe they would develop an interest in Rust, and thus programming, because their favorite game has the same name.
bjadamson
on 12 Dec 2018
Well, the title of the page is "Rust programming language" and the website URL has "rust-lang" in it. The rest of the page also presents multiple references to Rust being used for programming as a language and not a framework or other tool.
Titles are useless 鈥撀爊obody even sees them in modern browsers without contortions. It's easy to forget or not realize that they even exist, and most people probably do. Having to rely on the URL for critical information is not exactly great UX either. And the existence of URLs in the first place, as well, is getting more and more irrelevant and invisible, a mere technical detail. And having to scan through the whole page and piece together little bits of information, just in order to figure out what your site is about, is about as user-hostile as it gets!
jdahlstrom
on 13 Dec 2018
Putting myself in the shoes of a non-technical person (often decisionmakers for using Rust) who may have heard about Rust from their team, I could see it taking little while for it to sink in that it's a programming language. I can sympathise with this suggestion.
aidanhs
on 13 Dec 2018
i also agree and advocated for maintaining the words "programming language". this is fundamentally something that @aturon has taken lead on so we should wait for his comment on how to proceed.
ashleygwilliams
on 13 Dec 2018
Any update?
sanxiyn
on 8 Feb 2019
@sanxiyn Sorry for the lack of updates!
Between Rust 2018, the holidays and the rust all-hands most people working on this have been a bit busy. There's been talk about forming a Rust Website team; hopefully there should be more bandwidth to explore copy changes once that ball gets rolling.
yoshuawuyts
on 13 Feb 2019
Any update? Rust landing page still does not tell what Rust is.
sanxiyn
on 6 Apr 2019
@sanxiyn getting the ball rolling again has been taking a bit longer than I'd hoped for. I don't have an ETA, but am confident we'll get there eventually (:
yoshuawuyts
on 9 Apr 2019
For other people in my position, I recommend directing curious colleagues to Wikipedia's entry on Rust until rust developers get around to fixing their landing page. The Wikipedia entry
- [x] What it is
- [x] What its strong points are
- [x] What its syntax is like
- [x] Examples
I'm perplexed from the fact that a simple issue like this has remained open for half a year without resolution. How is this current state of the landing page even considered acceptable? If I submit a pull request changing the the phrase:
"Empowering everyone to build reliable and efficient software."
to
"A programming language that empowers everyone to build reliable and efficient software."
Will it be accepted?
JakeTherston
on 8 May 2019
A change would certainly be considered, but the proposed change would lengthen the claim and take a lot of steam out of it. I would avoid to discuss changing the claim, instead finding another option to weave it in.
@jaketherston There seems to be a weird issue with GH, making my comment be before yours.
skade
on 8 May 2019
@skade What if we replace "Rust" with "The Rust Programming Language"?
(btw, the same issue of order occurs in the Android app I'm using, so it's probably something in the meta data / API data. I realized jake's message is in the future, probably because he somehow got recorded with local time without tinge zone info, which, according to iso standard should beer interpreted as the machine local time, which is now probably interpreted as github server time in the future)
eddyp
on 8 May 2019
@eddyb I'm not very hype about that either. It's totally okay (and usual) to make the claim and intro without stating the exact nature of the product for brevity sake.
Like, to be clear, I appreciate that people want to fix this, I don't believe simply expanding one of the current texts is the fix.
skade
on 8 May 2019
It's totally okay (and usual) to make the claim and intro without stating the exact nature of the product for brevity sake.
The issue here is that the page does not state the nature of the product at all. Not even generally.
I urge you to give precedence to function over design. Internet users have (rightfully, imo) come to expect that landing pages contain some sort of description of the products or services being shown. The page, as it currently is, is simply not useful for the vast majority of people. The page showcases positive but secondary aspects of its subject while never delving into what that subject actually is. As it stands, people who aren't aware of Rust will have to leave the page and visit another source (e.g. Wikipedia) to fill in the missing information. Even from the perspective of web design, forcing people to click or tab away is the last thing you want a landing page to do.
I'll also be blunt, the current landing page completely fails to achieve its purpose. In fact, I believe it actively goes against it. I don't say this to attack you or anyone else who works on this project. I'm simply stating what I see (as a professional who does this for a living) to be an objective flaw.
Again, I urge you to rethink this through. Run a focus group (even a small informal one) even if you're absolutely certain the current design is acceptable. Discuss their experience to see how well the current design achieves its goals.
Like, to be clear, I appreciate that people want to fix this, I don't believe simply expanding one of the current texts is the fix.
Since expanding preexisting texts is off the table, how about adding a new section that describes what rust is (titled "What's Rust?"?) before the section "Why Rust?"?
Would such a change be reasonable?
JakeTherston
on 9 May 2019
Sorry for taking the weekend to come back to you.
I circled the thing around a little with some designer friend and we ended up with the following: Change the claim to "A language empowering everyone in building reliable and efficient software.". This avoids extending the claim too long ("programming" is implied in "software").
Considering adding a section on top of the main content: we'd like to avoid that. The page is consciously laid out as putting the "why and what for" over the showing the language. Because Rust has many diverse use-cases, we move code to the relevant sections. Embedded engineers should go the embedded site, network engineers to the network site, etc.
There's a suggestion here for making the overview better:
https://github.com/rust-lang/www.rust-lang.org/issues/351
Generally, if you want to link friends to the page, consider sending them to the landing page of their area of interest.
skade
on 13 May 2019
@skade That sounds awesome.
May I ask if the change from "to build" into "in building" is intentional? Even if the later is also proper English, the former seems easier to parse for non native speakers. At least that's how people thought when asked.
eddyp
on 13 May 2019
... and the former is shorter 馃槈
eddyp
on 13 May 2019
@eddyb Thanks for checking that. It was intentional, but given that you collected more feedback than I had, I'll change it back :).
skade
on 14 May 2019
Amended the PR.
skade
on 14 May 2019
Done. Closing this in favor or #351 and #445, which should cover the "deeper look at Rust" aspect, once implemented.
skade
on 14 May 2019
@skade thanks. BTW, stop pinging eddyb and ping me, eddyp instead 馃槈
eddyp
on 14 May 2019
@eddyp right, damn suggestions. We also need an eddy(d), and we got all the confusion :+1:
skade
on 14 May 2019
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Most helpful comment
I don't think is relevant if it's likely or not. The page should make it clear this is a programming language, not some framework or some other thing.